Newcomer / Intro I bought the game to play with my friends.

Nerhtal

N
But i have spent the last 3 hours trying to navigate a very un-intuitive galaxy map. I have done the tutorial for the Frame Shift Drive and think its a really great and beutiful system.

I understand you do not want to pander to casuals. But why is it so unituitive to use your UI. Why is the basic function of an OPEN PLAY universe sandbox game making it tremendously difficult trying to just play with my friends?

Why do i have to start in a random system 428Ly away from my friend. Why can't you let me start in a similar/close/same system as him. And let us explore out from there dying hilariously to interdictions, flying into suns, stations, deep space, running out of fuel.

Instead of getting literally ANGRY at the game because i have spent 3 hours trying to just meet my friend in a random system so we can play TOGETHER.

Is there a way to change my home system, i have died twice (once after 75ly travel) and ended up back at square one. I specifically bought this game because my friends suggested to get it for launch so we could play together and now i really really really really want my money back and kick Braben in the shins for the infuriating waste of time the game has felt for me this afternoon.

If people want to help, then answer the questions posed by me in my ranty style thread. Explain what keyboard shortcuts or commands or ingame menus let me play ingame with my friends. Is there a way to create a "group" and choose to start fresh commanders/pilots who all have the same home system? Is there a better way to navigate the galaxy map to create long distance routes and then have to spend an hour doing all the manual jumping, refuelling, avoiding interdictions. (The fun bits of the game that i have no issue with).

Or is the game as it has launched how it is planning to stay. Will everyone create a character and start in one of 400 billion random systems with a Galaxy map that lets you barely understand in which direction you need to jump to attempt to meet up with your friends. Nothing has been more furstrating then my friends finally convincing me last night to get this so we can play this for a year before SC comes out and have loads of fun then finally logging in today and having spent since 1am (its now 4am) just trying to learn the basics but at the same time me and my friend have tried to meet up. We havent met yet. We;ve both died to interdictions and been reset to our random home system the game have us. Give us a reason why we should not be asking for a refund?
 

AndyC77

A
It is a steep learning curve for newbies but stick with it and if you travel towards each other you can meet midway. Yes there are 400 billion systems but only a fraction have a civilisation. It is always recomended to spend a good few hours in the tutorials to become confident in every aspect.

Keep practicing and it will come to you eventually.
 

JamWheel

J
1. Ask your friend where they are
2. Use the galaxy map to search for the system (in the tabs at the top of the menu bar down the left)
3. When it finds the system, mouse hover over it and the plot route option
4. Follow the route

It's just like Google Maps, except in Space...

You can surely see that if everyone started where their pals are, the system would be overloaded in specific areas. Spreading the load seems sensible to me.
 

Antigonos

Banned
A
meeting is easy though, each of you put the same destination in the route planer and fly there.

wing mechanics and comunication will get better soon. (i hope ^^).
 

UKJay

UKJay
I also found the Galaxy map impenetrable at first but now I find it really intuitive. It just takes time and patience. It will become second nature.

Welcome to the Universe, Commander!
 

AndyC77

A
I use an x box controler and if i press the x button on the map i can move the view up or down giving you access to the four dimensions of the galaxy if this makes sense to you. I only found that out yesturday and i have been playing since alpha 1.0
 

ApolloXXX

A
Like anything worth taking the time to learn this takes patience. I was in the same place as you a few weeks ago and trust me it gets easier. Try not to jump in all at once. Learn to fly your ship around first, maybe try flight assist off, for a few hours, get your buttons all sorted, then slowly learn the other things. the Galaxy map is complicated when you first look at it but after you get the hang of it its a very good system. Also your control method makes a huge difference. what are you using?

Also look into getting a microphone and voice attack, it changed elite for me completely
 
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Jetkar

Jetkar
Players initial start position is randomly generated from main menu select options and the clear save this will not only clear any creds or ship earned but may randomly change your location. If this fails raise a support ticket.
 

DWorth

D
You could pick somewhere to meet, say Sol and work towards it and all meet up there, trading as you go. Interdictions can be avoided. When you get the warning, steer towards the blue escape vector and try to keep it centered. When the blue bar on the left has increased to its maximum and the right decreased to the point where it vanishes you'll escape your pursuer. (later on, when you want to fight, throttle back as far as possible and you'll drop out of SC without sustaining damage)

Even if you do get pulled out of supercruise, you can usually escape. Hammer the up arrow to put maximum power to engines and keep hammering Tab to fire the boost, then hit J to go back into supercruise once your drive has recharged. The training scenarios are a good way to work on your dogfighting skills without risking any costly mishaps.
 

ApolloXXX

A
Okay I just also read that its 4am for you. Get some sleep and come back to this when you feel less tired.

I'm not sure about finding people but if you really want to be the envy of your friends once you meet them try to get you head round everything else before meeting up with them. plot a course for a system one of them is in and then slowly head over learning about the game along the way.

This isn't a pick up and play game, it takes time to begin. But trust me I have only been playing for a bit and I am loving it.
 

Nerhtal

N
Its 4pm, not 4am.

THe problem i have is that i CAN NOT plot a route on the Galaxy Map to my friend, not even CLOSE to halfway. So we are just guessing.

If we could have plotted a route to ANY system of our choice. And start making our way there. Constantly setting new respawn/checkpoints/homesystems then I would have been fine. It could be because I do not know how to do those things. Nothing in game is remotely telling me I can. We have docked in new systems, died and still respawned back at "home" system i was given randomly on character creation.

I hope you guys can see the frustration this is causing. The fact that since I made this post me and my friend have still not been able to meet up. WE are both still jumping and jumping and jumping. IT doesnt feel like we are making any progress.
 

Jetkar

Jetkar
Nerhtal said:
Its 4pm, not 4am.

THe problem i have is that i CAN NOT plot a route on the Galaxy Map to my friend, not even CLOSE to halfway. So we are just guessing.

If we could have plotted a route to ANY system of our choice. And start making our way there. Constantly setting new respawn/checkpoints/homesystems then I would have been fine. It could be because I do not know how to do those things. Nothing in game is remotely telling me I can. We have docked in new systems, died and still respawned back at "home" system i was given randomly on character creation.

I hope you guys can see the frustration this is causing. The fact that since I made this post me and my friend have still not been able to meet up. WE are both still jumping and jumping and jumping. IT doesnt feel like we are making any progress.
Click to expand...

TBH jump range of your starter ship Sidewinder isnt much and possibly you may need to cross range higher than the range of your ship that is resulting in you not able to meet up with your mate. You need to get into better ship with larger jump range so do some missions and trading and trade up to better ship b4 trying to meet your mate. If you want have a chat check my sig spoiler for ts info
 

OrientalHero

O
Something no-one else has mentioned is that the route plotting is dependent on your ship max jump capability....
You are in a sidewinder with perhaps 7-8 LY of jump capability.
Quite a few star systems are further apart than that especially since SOl is in the "Western Spiral Arm" (ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha??), so the stars are sparser.
If you both start heading towards each other and pick simple courier missions on the way (no cargo, just data/CPUs etc), then you won't affect your jump distance and still be able to jump your map route.
Eventually, you'll get to the point where you can upgrade your Frame Shift Device which will increase your jump range (or in outfitting, get lighter components), which means your map route plotting will go further to eventually getting you to fly together.
Perhaps you won't both be the young and restless joyriding the stars, but more grizzled and experienced when you get together.
Hint: Make sure you do dock in a station every so often as dying means you respawn with insurance back at your last docked station.
Hint 2: If you really just want to make it over to your buddy real quick, strip shields, basic detector even weapons and get a fuel scoop and you will maximize your jump capability of the Sidewinder and you can just keep going as far as possible with each jump (you should get 10 plus LY). Just make sure you dock every so often!
 

RobinsonUK

R
I understand the frustration as it's not all that intuitive or easy to do for beginners. I think Frontier need to work on accessibility for meet-ups with friends, even if it's just allowing someone to choose the system they start in when they clear their save.
 

Gimley

Gimley
It is there but is limited at moment, we do not have "groups" like in other games yet, it is more something you need to do by communicating with friends to find where they are like has been said above then go meet them.

They ARE going to put in major improvements soon though, in what is called "wings". This will be an impressive enhancement we all get in the new year sometime which will allow us to travel together and share bounties etc. I am looking forward too it.

For now I just stick to jumping into my mates mining locations and robbing asteroid chunks when they cut them off for a laugh. You can also drop cargo for friends who can pick them up, it is limited what interactions you can do with friends on stations at moment too...... at the moment.... but the potential and intent by the developers to make this almost real. We shall see we have lots already planned they have published and i am confident they still have some amazing surprises for us!

For now locate them using the galaxy map, plot a route and join them, note you may need to travel some distance, but me and a mate are camping out in a nice pristine metallic belt system with good local facilities and find it highly convenient place to operate from. No i am not saying where it is!!!!! its mine! mine i tell you!!! Its shiny and my precious!
 
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